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Wide ScreenConcept art from David Cronenberg’s never-made ‘Total Recall’ movie
And you thought the Schwarzenegger version was messed up! It's a little known fact that Canadian director David Cronenberg was once attached to direct the 1980s film version of "Total Recall" before it became a hyper-violent action vehicle for Arnold. Until now, no one had really seen what Cronenberg had in mind for his version of the movie, but the director's vision has been revealed, thanks to some long-buried concept art recently posted by the original artists on the sci-fi blog io9.
The 1980s science fiction craze was in full swing when Cronenberg became involved in the project, with innumerable sci-fi classics being bought up and adapted by Hollywood producers. One of those producers was Dino De Laurentiis, who had already been quite successful producing genre fare like "Death Wish," "Conan the Barbarian," and "The Dead Zone," also directed by Cronenberg. When the Canadian filmmaker was brought on to adapt Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," De Laurentiis was deep into production on David Lynch's sci-fi disaster piece "Dune." The subsequent failure of Lynch's "Dune" scared De Laurentiis off the "Total Recall" project and Cronenberg was left in the lurch. (Check out more of the fantastic concept art here.)
Having written approximately twelve drafts of the "Total Recall" script and worked on pre-production of the film for close to a year, Cronenberg was heavily invested in the project. However, a falling out with one of the film's remaining producers — Ron Shusett — led to Cronenberg's eventual departure from the project. Shusett reportedly criticized Cronenberg for too literally adapting Dick's short story. According to the book "Counterfeit Worlds: Philip K. Dick on Film," Shusett wanted something more like "Raiders of the Lost Ark Go to Mars," not "Dick's version" -- the invariably disturbing and psychological work that Cronenberg had created.
It's always amazing to see what could have been. Cronenberg's film would have been very different from the existing version. The film was originally set to star Richard Dreyfuss as the everyman Quaid, although the producers wanted Patrick Swayze for the role and Cronenberg was eying William Hurt. With a cast in mind, this concept art goes along way towards envisioning the kind of film Cronenberg wanted to make. It's a shame it never happened.
Although Cronenberg was not credited on the Paul Verhoeven version of "Total Recall," many of his ideas survived to be in the finished film. Mars being populated by mutants and the character of Kuato are both from Cronenberg's adapted screenplay. Some of those elements have even apparently survived to this day and will be featured in the upcoming remake starring Colin Farrell and directed by Len Wiseman ("Underworld"). Kuato lives!
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